


Re-animating The Living

by Webtrinsic



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Abuse of italics, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gay Herbert West (Re-Animator), Getting Together, Herbert West Has Feelings, Hurt Daniel Cain, Hurt Herbert West, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, Insomnia, M/M, Minor Injuries, Post-Movie: Bride of Re-Animator (1989), Requited Love, Sad Daniel Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27488149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: The crypt collapses, Herbert is buried, and Dan refuses to leave him there.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	Re-animating The Living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snarkyvamp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkyvamp/gifts).



> I'm pretty sure y'all realized all my fics whether the fandom i basically just write whatever i want to see, and this fandom in particular is severely lacking in whump, plus seeing that there was no fics of dan digging herbert out from the rubble after bride of reanimator drove me up the wall, soooooo here it is
> 
> also this is shorter than i wanted but oh well

He’s moving before his brain can even process the crypt’s collapsed with Herbert inside. Muscle memory lunging to protect Herbert. Francesca’s nails bite at his forearm as he yanks from her grasp and viciously digs at the earth in search of his...friend. If he could even call Herbert that. The lines crossed when his battered heart and his loneliness begged that they stay parallel.

He’s digging with his hands, there’s a twang of metal nearby and the rain soaked journalist is using one of the old graveyard shovels to aid him even though it’s clear she’s telling herself that she’s only helping because it’s the right thing to do, not that she cares about the _blasphemous_ Herbert. 

Dan doesn’t care, she’s helping, and there's so much dirt and broken concrete to get through. There’s a chance his digging is fruitless, he could simply be digging for a body at this point.  Herbert could have been crushed by concrete, suffocated by dirt and debris, he could be motionless in the dirt and even still Dan knew he’d be digging until his fingers exposed bone.

Their partnership has never been so clear, and anyone could see why it worked. Herbert was hellbent on reanimating the dead and Dan refused to let Herbert die. He wouldn’t call himself a religious man, and Herbert’s hubris had been clear with his impassioned response to Francesca’s revulsion. That being said, Dan would face god, the devil, or whatever deity or seemingly unstoppable force that they seemingly toyed with everyday and rip his little bastard from their stone grip.

If that didn’t work he’d go the familiar route, the one Herbert had led him on. He’d finish the reagent, he’d preserve Herbert’s body to the point rot would fear encroaching on his person.  His determination wouldn't be undersold, and the earth shifted in his grasp, fingertips cracked and bleeding, cuts being infested with the cobwebs and the soil he was wading through.

His fingernails were beginning to pull back, threatening to come off, and the pain was no deterrent. His stubborn refusal to give up was something he’d been known for, at the hospital, to his parents, to anyone who knew him. Except now he is manic, he doesn’t recognize it within _himself_ , but he does recognize it. He’s lived with it. Lived with those short glasses clad convictions long enough to know in the moment his outright refusal is none other than Herbert’s.

They’d become so intertwined Dan is more than aware he isn’t just saving Herbert by battling the unforgiving and unrelenting ground and the gravity it followed. The same gravity dripping the dirt back onto his beloved faster than he could sweep it away also making tears rain down his face.  Whatever he’d lost in the past is incomparable to what he’d be losing now if he couldn't excavate Herbert right this second.

“Dan,” her accented voice gives him brief hope for a second, that she’s gotten to him, except that isn’t what she’s announcing, “Your hands!” He knows and he doesn’t care. The dirt leeched the moisture from his skin causing it to crack, blood pulled grime over the lacerations and he’d already felt three finger nails chip off, one more on it’s way as he pulled at loose cement sending it flying behind him. 

“Keep digging,” the woman flinches at his gruelling tone, his vocals raw and pulled taught enough that there is a genuine concern they may snap. If he lives through this, if his heart doesn’t give out from the visceral affliction pounding at him, he’ll be recovering for weeks.

A hand jumps from the earth and while it sends Francesca fleeing, likely remembering the walking dead she’d witnessed that night and the cliche torn from the movies of zombies tearing themselves from the earth, she is gone. 

Dan, even if it’s not Herbert (he won’t chance it), tugs the appendage hard, likely bruising the skin of their wrist and maybe even dislocating their shoulder, but there is no other way to tear them from the earth that won't garner any injury.

Relief is an understatement for what he feels when Herbert’s head breaks through the surface, there’s dirt and blood causing his hair to tangle, his glasses are gone, and his lips are bleeding and chapped. Left cheek bone bruised and scraped but not badly enough for Dan to count it as fractured.

It’s a quick act of unfolding his rolled up sleeves to wipe the grime away from the many’s squeezed shut eyes, he’d almost used his hands but realized the gnarled appendages wouldn’t be much help in getting Herbert clean.

Herbert still doesn’t even attempt to open his eyes, a smart call, as Dan works on getting his arms around the man’s waist and pulling the rest of him out of the ground, gentler than before as not to dislocate anything further.

There’s a wince at the action, Herbert’s forehead tucking itself against his sternum as he’s finally freed from the earth. Dan’s on autopilot, as much as he wants to ask questions he knows neither of them can speak. So, he pulls the scientist into his lap, something that would have embarrassed them both if they were lucid, settled his hands on the front and back of the man’s dislocated shoulder and without any warning reset it.

The bite to his shoulder is deserved and forgotten, and once Dan’s body and mind has realized Herbert is here alive if not well, falls back against the grass unconscious.

* * *

They’re in the hospital, a concern in that it means they could have been discovered. They haven’t it seems, he isn't restrained, and the police report is near his head. Herbert’s signature on the bottom, Dan can also see the cop outside the room flirting with a new nurse he recognizes but can’t quite remember her name. 

His blurred gaze moves back to the report, Herbert claiming they realized a wall in their basement had been brittle and when it finally collapsed it took down the adjacent crypt with it. Another name mentioned was Francesca’s, a small note beside the name saying she was taken to a psychiatric facility. Dan can already feel the eye roll of the writer putting quotations around the word _zombies_.

“Our insurance will cover the house and the rest,” The voice Dan had been so afraid he’d never hear again spoke, Herbert looking in from the doorway, still somehow put together even while battered.

“That’s good,” where before his voice had been bordering on animalistic, now it was meak to the point he’s not even sure the man heard it. 

“Hm,” It’s an dismissive agreement that is so very Herbert, even as he comes in and takes a seat beside the bed. Dan stares at the man’s arm trapped in a sling, feeling the tendrils of an apology for his lips only for nothing to come out.

“Why am I here?” it didn’t make sense, Herbert had gotten far more hurt than he yet here Herbert was sitting at his bedside.

“Your hands got infected. The antibiotics are working well, you’ll make a full recovery. We both will,” Blinking, the man looks down to his wrapped hands realizing he’s so drugged up he can’t even feel them. 

There isn’t any way he could answer that, leaving them in silence until the cop comes in. He doesn’t spare Dan a glance, knowing he can’t actually get a signature, before taking his report and leaving without so much as an acknowledgement to either of them.

A clicking noise stops the doctor from closing his eyes before realizing it was Herbert upping his medication so he could sleep. There’s a thank you in order from the both of them, one neither of them say but display with their eyes before Dan falls back asleep.

* * *

It’s loud at the house as the crypt is fixed. Something the two of them can’t do anything about except cover their ears. Herbert is more and more irritated, especially when the sound keeps his counterpart from sleeping. He should be resting as well yet he’s grown used to going without.  Insomnia dug its heels in further due to his scientific inaction. 

He wants to get to work, he’d salvaged the reagent, hiding the bottle under the engine in Dan’s car. But with his arm in a sling he wouldn’t be able to get much done, meaning he spent his days doing things for Dan who couldn’t use either of his arms.

He made food he was pretty sure Dan didn’t actually like (he ate it anyway), actually worked on cleaning the decedent house, before checking back in on Dan. 

Luckily Dan, who couldn’t sleep with the noise didn’t seem to mind his constant popping in, in fact Dr. Cain seemed his best when in company.

Dan’s holding a pillow around his head to cover his ears when Herbert steps inside, the entry causing the doctor to crack an eye open. A soft exhausted smile pulled at his lips before he closed his eyes again, yawning before moving to sit up, but Herbert didn’t let him, settling a hand on his shoulder and making the bed dip where he sat.

“Thank you for saving me,” It’s soft and Dan shrugs, the act had been intrinsic. Instinct. Something he _needed_ to do. It was thanks enough that the man was alive. 

“I always will,” Dan murmurs when he figures Herbert is waiting for a verbal response. In a way, Dan had dropped himself at Herbert’s feet the moment they met. Now he gives him his soul with those three words alone.

Herbert forces himself to swallow, his chest feeling tight, the words whittling him down into nothing. He’d never felt so empty, especially when compared to anyone, that wasn’t the case with Dan, who broke him in every single way.

An offer sprouts in the man’s chest, giving him some hope of returning the absolute holy grail Dan has given him. It takes one look at the man’s haggard form to know it like himself, is nothing.

He cannot offer that he would have fished for Dan if it’d been him trapped, truly he would have dove into the earth to pull out Dan but even Herbert knew he would have been unsuccessful, and there'll always be a small part of him, one not connected to his emotions, that would have wanted a fresh corpse to work on.

Not only that, he cannot offer an eternal life, nor could he offer a resuscitation because it’s not what Dan would have wanted. Even if it meant dying young. Daniel Cain, if he had before, doesn’t want to live now. He survives because he wants  _ him _ to live. And what’s most unforgivable is Herbert selfishly wants both. He wants to live, survive, and he wants Dan.

There is more doubt than he usually allows in that sentiment. It could be because Herbert knows he doesn’t deserve it, or because it’s as ludicrous as raising corrupt cadavers.

Herbert knows why he wants so badly to reanimate the dead. He wants to live in the way he’s always wanted to. People, however dumb he often thought them to be, were right in some aspect.

_ Why don’t you live now? _

Yes, why doesn’t he? Leaning forward, Herbert West kisses Daniel Cain, and the man is more than eager to press his lips back in turn. 

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
